Tag Archives: West Coast Conference

We check in with Aaron Fitt over at B.A. tonight with a chat and a key piece of news out of the NCAA meetings in Nashville.

Aaron hosted his first chat of the year. Among the various topics discussed are the top five college prospects in the 2008 MLB draft: Pedro Alvarez of Vanderbilt, Aaron Crow of Missouri, Brian Matusz of San Diego, Justin Smoak of South Carolina and Brett Hunter of Pepperdine. Aaron says Alvarez is the class of the draft, featuring the top tools in the game. Aaron also discusses Texas’ reloading and the top three in the SEC (Ole Miss, South Carolina and Vanderbilt), among other issues.

Aaron also gives a recap of the failure of attempts to override the drastic revamp of many rules in NCAA baseball in a Blog Entry found here.

CSTV Editor Doug Kroll checks in with his weekly article on the top college baseball players. The position in which he focuses on this week is the closer. He lists Cole St. Clair of Rice in the top spot. He has struggled throughout his career with the Owls as he tends to be injured every season. Continue reading CSTV’s Top Closers→

Our good friend Kendall Rogers of Rivals.com has started doing previews of conferences for the 2008 season.He is one of the top college baseball writers in the country with the depth of his knowledge about the players and coaches across the country. The previews are brief but informative especially the lower level conferences. Continue reading Rivals Conference Previews→

For those who are wondering: Yes, Ryan Flaherty earned 2nd team honors at SS, though I’m wondering how Vanderbilt’s Mikie Minor was not deemed among the twenty-nine pitchers selected to the three team All-America list which can be read here.

As a follow-up to his Top 5 Storylines of 2008, Rivals.com baseball editor Kendall Rogers has revealed five predictions for 2008. The full article can be read here.

First, Kendall picks UCLA to be the team to step up their game the most. Conversely, he sees Clemson falling flat in the new year.

Kendall’s “Most Important” players? Pitcher Jacob Thompson of UVA tows the rubber, while Vanderbilt Third baseman Pedro Alvarez is the king of the batter’s box.

And Kendall’s early take on national title contenders? It all starts with Arizona State, but Kendall says that Miami, UCLA, Rice, San Diego, Texas and Vanderbilt should be in the mix for some hardware.

In separate blogging news, congratulations go out from this Commodore fan to Vandy’s All-American RHP commitment Sonny Gray, who, as QB, led Smyrna High School (Smyrna, TN) to its second straight state football title. Gray’s legend continues to grow in Tennessee and we’ll have to wait until August 15 to see if BA’s #6 rated HS prospect will take his 96MPH fastball and back breaking curve to the Hawk.

Oral Roberts head coach Rob Walton was named the field manager for the 2008 USA National Team. He will be joined by Old Dominion head coach Jerry Meyers who will act as the pitching coach. The other two assistant coaches are San Francisco head coach Nino Giarratano and Ritch Price of Kansas. The team will hold training camp in conjunction with their tour of the New England Collegiate Baseball League starting on June 10th. They will then head down to the Coastal Plain League to present the National Team Trials on June 20th. The team will be named on June 24th before starting up a seven game series with Chinese Taipei from June 25th-July 1. On the next day the team will fly over to Europe to play in the 2008 Dutch Honkbal Tournament and play a two-game set against the Czech Republic. The team will stay in Europe until July 18th when they begin competition in the IV FISU World Collegiate Championship in Brno, Czech Republic. The full release is available here.

We are starting up with our previews of the 2008 season. We have broken down the top five pitchers in the country. Stay tuned for more previews of the upcoming season as the season gets closer.
Aaron Crow, Jr. Missouri

Crow was named the top pitching prospect in the prestigious Cape Cod Baseball League this summer. Crow has a mid-90’s fastball with a plus slider and a solid cutter. Crow went 9-4 with a 3.59 last season but got bombed in the NCAA Tournament by Louisville as he let up seven runs in 2/3 of an inning.
Jacob Thompson, Jr. Virginia

Thompson had a breakout season in 2007 where he led the Virginia Cavaliers to the NCAA Tournament. He had a perfect 11-0 record with a 1.50 ERA. Thompson has a low 90’s fastball with downward action on it with a solid curveball. Thompson pitched over the summer for the USA National Team where he got a chance to pitch in the Pan Am Games. He went 1-2 with a 1.27 ERA in 21.1 innings. He was shutdown after the Pan-Am Games to rest his arm for the 2008 season.
Brian Matusz, Jr. San Diego

Matusz is a 6’4 left handed power pitcher for the University of San Diego baseball program. In 2007, He led the Toreros to the number 1 seed in the San Diego regional with a 10-3 record with a 2.85 ERA. He also struck out 163 strikeouts in 123 innings. He pitched for the USA National Team this summer where he compiled a 3-1 record with a 1.33 ERA in four starts. He was also shut down for the summer after the Pan-Am Games to rest his arm.
Kyle Gibson, So. Missouri

Gibson is a 6’5 right handed sinker ball pitcher who was named the number 3 overall prospect in the Cape Cod League by Baseball America and number 9 by Perfect Game. He lead the Missouri Tigers with help from Aaron Crow to the NCAA Tournament as he had a 8-3 record with a 4.12 ERA as he served as the closer with seven saves. He is expected to make the move to the rotation in 2008 and give the Tigers two legitimate aces on the staff.
Ryan Perry, Jr. Arizona

Perry dazzled scouts in the Cape Cod League with a mid-90’s fastball which hit 97 on some guns over the summer. He struggled in 2007 with the Arizona Wildcats as he went 0-2 with a 6.35 ERA. Perry was recovering from a January 2007 accident when he crashed his motorcycle going over 80 MPH without a helmet on which he walked away with a broken non-throwing arm. Perry pitched in 18 games coming out of the bullpen while picking up four saves. His record for the CCBL season was only 1-2 with a 4.15 ERA. He is expected to become an impact player in the Pac-10 for the 2008 season.

The College Baseball Blog would like to thank Cape Prospects for providing the videos for some of the pitchers.

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